The RPS Bargain Bucket: High on Life

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Hello, Bucketeers! Something weird happened this week. The Internet gave me a dose of that thing called “faith in the human spirit.” After having his finances upturned by that thing called a questionable health care system, IGF chairman Brandon Boyer put up a cancer treatment relief fund on GoFundMe. And after only five days? It’s almost, almost at its target goal of $110, 000. Which is bloody amazing and a testament to how damn cool the video game industry is. I love you guys. You make me so damn happy, sometimes. But that’s my public service ramble of the week. Now, here are some cool games going for cheap. (And plushies. Their names are Hoot and Rambert.)

Devolver Digital Double Debut BundlePay at least $10 / £5.98 / €3.39 to get everything
Screw the other Humble Bundle. Devolver Digital’s transmedia package is the one you want. I’ve always been a huge fan of the edgy, tongue-in-cheek indie publisher and for good reason, I think. They do cool stuff like have fictional members of the board chatter on Twitter and donate money to rad people like Brandon Boyer. Yup, that’s right. Here’s an opportunity to cash in on an awesome deal and be charitable. Pick up games like Defense Technica and films like Austin High while donating to Boyer’s cancer relief fund. What could be better than that?

Waking Mars$1.99/£1.19/€ 1.43
In case you missed your opportunity to snag Waking Mars last week, Tiger Style was kind enough to engineer a 80% discount for this lovely game over at Desura. Unlike so many sci-fi games set in space, Waking Mars won’t have you slotted into the shoes of a perma-roided space marine. No, you’re a gardener here. An interstellar explorer with a green thumb and a fascinating mission. It’s thoughtful, atmospheric and all kinds of words you should view as high praise. We have a Wot I think. Go read it. (P.S: Rates might be wonky because Desura doesn’t seem to like Hola! terribly much.)

The Adrenaline Bundle$5.08/£3.64/€4.39
BundleStars’ Adrenaline Bundle is rather delicious. While I can’t vouch for all the games in the bundle, I’m rather fond of some of them. Ring Runner’s a twin-stick shooter taken to fresh heights , Rock of Ages is just bonkers, Monday Night Combat is great with friends and Kaptain Brawe: A Brawe New World is like a point-and-click adventure starring a bearded Zap Brannigan almost. And while the rest of the bundle doesn’t look half-shabby at all, I suspect the real star is possibly the Axis Game Factory. Time for some game-making?

(P.S: BundleStars and Hola don’t seem to be getting along either. I keep getting Euros regardless of what I do. Interestingly, US folk get it a touch cheaper than others so I’m using that as a point of reference.)

Rogue Legacy $5.09/£4.07/€4.75
I really, really like Rogue Legacy. I’m absolutely terrible at it, but I love the game. On the off-chance you’ve somehow missed every glowing mention of Rogue Legacy, it’s a 2D, sidescrolling procedural death adventure which will have you leading an entire family into certain doom. Like, really. Whenever a character dies, you’ll be able to then take control of one of their children and direct said kid back into the twisting, dangerous castle. There are just so many things to like about Rogue Legacy, not least of all its take on sexual preferences. Have this Wot I think if you don’t believe me.

Also of note:

Left 4 Dead Bundle – $$7.49/£5.74/€7,49
Hey, look. Left 4 Dead and Left 4 Dead 2 is available for cheap. No, you don’t get a sales pitch with it.

The Humble Weekly Sale: Popcap – $6.0/£3.59/€4.33 is the price to beat(Edited for less grump) I don’t know how I feel about this. On one hand, it’s kind of awesome that all the proceeds will go straight to charity and/or Humble Bundle. You can’t actually give money to Electronic Arts. On the other, it’s Electronic Arts, a company which makes me grumble a lot. I’m not a big fan of the games in the bundle, personally. But, if you are? Snag ’em.

Exactly. I’m not sure how it’s a moral dilemma when EA is actually doing a good thing and saying “everything can go to charity”. The games even unlock on Steam. So yes, EA can be an ass and I get people’s frustrations but this is actually a positive thing they’re doing by not asking for any money for themselves.

I wonder, when you give money to study cancer. Do the labs patent the discover, then refuse to sell the drugs to poor countries like India or Brasil, and only sell the drug to rich people in USA (not everybody in USA, mind you, only the people with the money).

What my money there do? do that money buys me medicines for all, or only medicines for the rich men?

Gateways is PWYW on link to indiegamestand.com for the next 86 hours. I highly recommend it. Previously I said that it does a lot of really weird shit with portals in a metroidvania kind of way, and that makes for some extremely challenging puzzles that’ll really leave you scratching your head. Fortunately there’s a robust hint system that tells you whether you need the ability to create upside down time travel clones to solve a particular puzzle, so for the most part it manages to avoid frustration. You should get it!

Beating the average gets you Adventures of Shuggy, which I didn’t particularly like myself but other people seemed to enjoy it.

I really liked Shuggy early on but tough platformers aren’t really my thing and this gets proper difficult later on after a very easy start – I bounced off it soon after the ghost repeats of your dead self started appearing. Too many long level repeats after each death and I don’t have the patience. But if you like tough platformers then it’s a cut above an overcrowded genre – charming, inventive, looks great and well worth a BTA.

The amnesia fortnight prototypes are also out on the humble page. I have been doing some nurturing followed by some GET THE EFF AWAY FROM ME PSYCHO with Little Pink Best Buds. I like to think of it as A Space Odyssey 2001 but with pink pilsbury doughboys. Cute, no idea what’s going on from start to finish

Hmm… bunch of ‘okay‘ games, all the money goes to charity, only $6… possibly attempting to convey irony through written word on the internet… not sure how I feel about this. On the plus side it says ‘proceed at your own discretion’, so I went ahead and gave a load of money to the MRA to play peggle.

Most of those games were from a time when PopCap still had a heart. You know, prior to EA carving it out and eating it raw and rinsing it down with a flagon of George Fan’s tears. There is no in-app purchase cheap enough to recover one’s soul.

Adrenaline Bundle contains also Expeditions: Conquistador, I’ve played it recently and loved it.
It’s a pretty unique mix of turn based tactical battles, world exploration with resource gathering and text adventures.
You have to keep your expedition safe, fed and happy while you explore the uncharted lands of Mexico, trade with or exploit the locals. It’s a very unique experience and I recommend anyone to try it.

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Noooo Cassandra’s gone evil, from her all consuming addiction to bargain games. Its all our fault, for making her seek them out for us :*(
Its like that scene in Superman 3….Its OK Cassandra. You can be great again! Go fight your alter ego in a scrapyard. We believe in youuuuuu :D

I tried arguing with the 90% discount based on the things I’d heard about the game but it just sat there looking at me with big, innocent eyes. Sixty seconds later I was clicking the magic buttons that meant I could take the little rascal home with me.

I tried gaia mission for 3 hours two months ago and hated it. The opening fps section is lousy and the squad AI pathing is still awful. I can see how the game might get better once some more stuff unlocked, but I wasn’t having fun and I didn’t think any later fun would would make up for all the problems with the game. There is a neat game in there somewhere but so many elements are so poorly executed that I don’t think its worth getting.

A few questions to those who have played it based on videos I’ve seen. Apologies as its the morning and I may be a bit irritable. Waiting for tea and toast to kick in:

1. Does the overacted Tuff Cocknee Yet Venerably Battle Wyze Geeza (TCYVBWG) do TCYVBWG accent / awful attempt to be an irritated Jason Statham all the way through?
2. Does TCYVBWG say “Essi” in every single sentence in the whole game?
3. Has the AI improved from “complete battlefield liability” to “competent”?
4. Are the FP shooting sections relatively few and far between / entirely up to you?
5. Are there many more enemy types besides droids and drones?

Most of the reviews I have read use the word “frustration” a lot, and that coupled with the irritation of Bohemia’s english voice actor (I’m southern english myself and he just sounds like he’s imitating someone who was a bit cross and happened to be from Essex), the same one who wittered all over British Armed Forces, kind of puts this in the “cheap moneywise, bloody expensive in patience” camp.

Has the AI improved from “complete battlefield liability” to “competent”?

No.

In one of the early sections of the campaign, I launched 2 walruses: one controlled, and one in AI-driven “assist” mode. Hit the island and noticed the assist walrus was nowhere to be seen. The carrier had parked with its docking bays facing away from the island; the AI-driven walrus had undocked and then proceeded to beat itself against the side of the carrier trying to make a bee-line for my walrus.

After finishing the mission, I put both walrusi into AI mode and set a waypoint for the island. Despite there being roads across the entire damn thing, both of them decided to try traversing the untraversable mud instead. Cue 5+ mins of having to manually slide the goddamn things out of the mud and set dozens of waypoints so it wouldn’t happen again and I’d had enough.

The original was the first PC game I ever bought and I swear its support AI was far better.

It’s strange that the Devolver Digital bundle isn’t linked to on the Humble Bundle website. It’s also strange that the logo for the bundle seems to be missing two letters. And I didn’t even received an e-mail from Humble Bundle about it.

This probably speaks more about how impromptu it was than anything else. Right now most only know it even exists due to word being spread among those in the gaming industry who have a heart and give a damn.

This is barely related but I’m excited about Humble Bundle’s connections to the cancer relief fund. I just saw a tweet by Humble’s Biz Dev Alex Ting about this. There’s apparently a 100% Brandon Boyer widget coming up. And they look like they’re sourcing for devs willing to participate in whatever secret project is coming up.

You can get it for 19.99 of those British monies things you people have, if you apply the voucher 5OFFDS2 at SimpyCDKeys, or you can get it for 35.99 of those US dollars they have over there at Direct2Play.

I think it’s pretty much the same amount of money in both places, but I live in South America, so what do I know. It is cheap in either one, that’s for sure.

Waking Mars does have a certain allure. Feck it, I’m wasted arguing against it. Why have trips to Venus when you could go to Mars? It’s just a game, but every time I felt that was that, it called me right back.

I dont know about the Planetary annihilation pricing, the initial price was a joke (however they justified it or not), $28.43 would be what i might have paid when it appeared on steam unfinished and in beta, now a long time later (was it a year ? it felt like a year, and its still unfinished btw) it feels like too much

early access or not the clock starts ticking the second you get that purchase button 75% discounts should be starting right about now, for example i got bioshock infinite in a bundle with the other 2 bioshocks less than 6 months from release for 12 bucks, heck i could preorder darksouls 2 for 35 usd right now, why should i expect any different from this game ?